which is to-day almost wholly unnavigable. No mention is made in the log of any shoal water on this passage, although as soon as it is encountered south of Las Islas de Arena it is recorded. The distance is also widely different, being 120 miles, whereas the log accounts for not more than 80. The Mucarras Cays do not correspond with Las Islas de Arena in number and position, and are only 26 miles from the Cuban coast, whereas the log says that the ships sailed 54 miles and then had Cuba in sight only.

Captain Becher, R. N., published a book entitled "The Landfall of Columbus," in which he adopted Watling's Island as Guanahani ; his decision has probably been more widely received than any other. But Mr. Fox shows conclusively that the assumed track from San Salvador to Cuba is widely at variance with the log, and is only an ingenious attempt to reconcile facts with a preconceived theory. The first point of difference is in the log of the 15th. The Spanish reads: "y como desta isla vide otra mayor al Oueste, cargué las velas por andar todo aquel dia fasta la noche, porque aun no pudiera haber andado al cabo del Oueste. y cuasi al poner del sol sorgí acerca del dicho cabo." Captain Becher translates: "And as from this island I saw another larger one to the westward I made sail, continuing on until night, for as yet I had not arrived at the western cape." Professor Montaldo's translation is, "And when from this island I saw another larger one to the west I clewed up the sails, for I had gone all that day until night, because I could not yet have reached the western extremity." The vital difference is in the translation of "cargué las velas." The verb "cargar" means ordinarily to press or to crowd, and its translation by Becher "I made sail" is therefore natural; but "cargar las velas" is a technical term, meaning to clew or brail up the sails, a signification the reverse of what it ordinarily has. Mr. Fox, who had a translation by Professor Montaldo, adopts his interpretation of this passage, although giving some one else as the authority. The question once raised, any dictionary of nautical terms shows that the true rendering of "cargué las velas" is "I clewed up the sails." Becher's erroneous translation leads him into the hypothesis that Columbus did not stop at the second island that he reached, but pushed on towards the one in the west. Even if this hypothesis were correct, it affords no justification for the tampering with the name given by Columbus to the second island, Santa Maria de la Concepcion. Becher supposes that he passed Rum Cay without stopping and pushed on to

Long Island, where he anchored about sunset; but he divides the above name, giving to Rum Cay the first half of it, Santa Maria, and to Long Island the remainder, Concepcion. This division would seem to be almost too absurd for credence, yet it has actually been adopted by the British Admiralty. It is charitable to suppose that they are aware that they are accepting names due only to the fertile imagination of Captain Becher, and not those given by Columbus. The evidence is conclusive in the log that Columbus did not push on to the land he saw to the westward; for in two places in the log of the 15th, and in one of that of the 16th, reference is made to the land visible to the westward. It was in sight, but not until noon of the 16th did the ships leave the second island to sail to it. It cannot be urged in defence of Captain Becher that the ships anchored at sunset of the 15th at the north end of Long Island and sailed thence on the 16th for his next island, Exuma; for, Exuma is not in sight from Long Island. Becher slights the "marvellous harbor" described in the journal of the 17th, saying that it is "really nothing more than the low shelving shore of the island (Exuma) covered to the depth of a few feet by the sea." The real difficulty is that there are two excellent harbors in Exuma which do not at all agree with the one described by Columbus, which appeared to be a good port, but which proved to be shallow.

But Captain Becher's fancy takes its highest flight in the course he attributes to Columbus on the night of the 17th. He fixes on the Crooked Island group as the Samoet or Isabela of the journal, and it is necessary to get the ships there, although at sunset they were a hundred miles distant, at Great Exuma. He therefore writes of the heavy gale on that night from the westward, before which Columbus ran ESE. until he cleared the north end of Long Island, when he hauled to the southward, skirting the shore and anchoring at daybreak at the south end of Long Island, which he supposed to be the south end of Exuma. The distance is about one hundred miles, the time allotted, about ten hours. There are several objections to this assumed run. First, no seaman of Columbus' ability would run all night at such a speed in an absolutely unknown sea; second, there was no gale! The log is explicit: "the wind was light, and did not permit me to reach the land to anchor." Mr. Fox says of Becher's hypothesis, "He 'bounds him along the reef of this coral island and into the unknown darkness as if it was as easy to do so as to write about it. He makes him straddle a strange island during a stormy night and witlessly anchors him at the end of the wrong one in the morning."

For the fourth island (Isabela), Becher fixes on the Crooked Island group, and no one can read the journal with chart in hand (see Plate III.) without noting how closely the topography agrees with the text. In the run from Isabela to Cuba, Becher allows one and a half points westerly variation in order to bring the ships into the port of Nipe; but, as will be shown later, the reckoning of this run is too uncertain to admit of any positive conclusions based on it alone. Appended to Mr. Fox's monograph is, moreover, a discussion of the variation of the compass in the Bahamas in 1492, by Mr. Schott, Assistant, U. S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, in which the conclusion is reached that the variation was not more than a quarter of a point west.

Thus far we have followed Mr. Fox's criticism only; but his own route is also open to objection, and must next be considered. It is apparently founded on the description of the second island.

The log says (Oct. 15) that "the side which is towards the island of San Salvador runs north and south and is five leagues in length; and the other which I followed ran east and west and contains over ten leagues." Captain Fox says: "Crooked has a north and south side 13 miles, and another which runs west by north and east by south 29 miles. I wish the reader to take heed that it is the second island and no other of which the journal records the length and trend of two separate sides; and that Crooked is the only one in the Bahamas which conforms to this description."

This coincidence is certainly a remarkable one, and if a theory founded on it did not conflict in any point with the journal it would be almost conclusive. The description of San Salvador is too meagre to enable any one to urge final objections against Mr. Fox's choice of Samana, but the description does not agree so closely with it as with Becher's choice of Watling. The objections to his route rest not on the first island but on those visited later. From the second island Columbus saw "another larger one to the west," but Long Island, Mr. Fox's third island, is invisible from his second. He admits this; in fact, he particularly investigated the point, and explains the inconsistency by two suppositions: one, that extensive physical changes may have been in progress in the Bahamas since 1492; the other, founded on the statement of the light-house keepers at Bird Rock, off the NW. point of Crooked Island, that, although Long Island is not visible itself, yet clouds sometimes settle over it in clear weather like a stretch of land. It is possible that changes have taken place, but it may be questioned whether any extensive settling of the land